1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus and an image pickup unit, and more particularly to an image pickup unit formed by fixing an image pickup device made of a bare chip and a protective glass to an electric board by an adhesive and an image pickup apparatus to which this form of the image pickup unit is applied.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been put into practice and widely used an electronic equipment such as a digital camera constructed so that a subject image formed on the basis of a bundle of rays from a subject incident to a photographing optical system is formed on a light receiving surface of an image pickup device made of a bare chip arranged at a predetermined position (charge coupled device (CCD), for example) so as to record the subject image as image data or the like in a predetermined form.
One example of a form of the image pickup unit incorporated in the image pickup apparatus such as a digital camera is a bare chip-implemented structure as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-218293 (See FIG. 2 thereof).
That is, a flexible print circuit board (FPC) is bonded to a protective glass using an adhesive. In this flexible print circuit board, an image pickup device made of a bare chip is connected on a surface opposite to the adhesive surface to which the protective glass is bonded through an electrode pad and a bump. In this case, the light receiving surface of the image pickup device is arranged opposite to the protective glass.
And an adhesive is applied so as to cover this electrode pad and the bump. By this, the flexible print circuit board and the image pickup device are bonded by the adhesive, and a sealing structure of the light receiving surface (pixel region) of the image pickup device is formed.
As mentioned above, an image pickup unit in a conventional generally-used image pickup apparatus has a bare chip-implemented structure in which a bare chip (image pickup device) made of a rigid plate member is bonded to a flexible print circuit board, which is a flexible plate member, by an adhesive, for example.
Also, in an image pickup device made of a normal bare chip, the pixel region is usually designed so that it becomes as large as possible for the chip shape. Therefore, there is a tendency that an interval between an electrode on the same surface as that on which the pixel region of the bare chip (image pickup device) is formed at a portion adjacent to the pixel region and a periphery portion of the pixel region becomes short.